Reading Hour
by Seraphim Grace
Summary: A series of drabbles about the daily life of the SideB assassins.
1. Reading Hour

Side B drabble

Title: Reading Hour- a side B drabble

Author: Seraphim Grace  
Archive: www.Seraphim-grace. if you want it ask.  
Feedback: Always appreciated and replied to.  
Rating: G/U  
Pairings: none  
Warnings: fluff, 2 in the morning fluff that I wrote down and am now typing up.

In the terms of fairness all of the Krypton Brand assassins had agreed that on one Saturday night, each taking turns, that they would do something that each of them wanted. This meant that every six weeks Free would take them to a medium, Chloe to a fashion show or Ken to a football match. Yuki decided that the cinema was the best place to take them, with pizza afterwards although he himself didn't eat it because they had great pasta. Michel's night involved disney movies, a DVD and a rather powerful bloodlust for the next few missions.

Aya had, after a lot of thought about what they should do on his night, the first time he took them to the theatre but Ken, who could be so quiet in the cinema couldn't quite understand Shakespeare and spent most of it whispering to Chloe. He had taken them to a concerto but Ken had somehow assumed that this was the same as a concert and had been excited, but then when they had been asked to leave because of the volume of his snoring.

Aya knew that Ken did not intend to ruin these things, they just weren't very him. In fact he had an open-ended agreement with Chloe to go with Ken to concerts because the types of concerts Ken went to, being bands named the Darkness or Kasabian, Chloe really didn't want to be. Sometimes they even took Yuki and everyone had fun, often Aya had more fun than others with his particularly bony elbows judiciously applied to the ribs of people that called him a fag and his own ability to attract a bigger crowd of screaming fan girls than the lead singers.

At a loss of what else to do on his Saturday, despite that he had spent the last six weeks planning it, he wondered about taking them to a restaurant but that wouldn't take up the whole night, or late night ice skating, but Ken who could be so graceful on a mission could be so clumsy off it. He decided to just have a nice quiet evening in reading.

He had warned them all the day before that that was his decision and that they could drink wine, soda or tea depending on their mood, he didn't mind munchies, things that had been banned at the theatre, but that they had to have a book that would keep them occupied for a couple of hours.

Now he sat in the plush lounge of the house above the flower shop and looked around at them. Free had found a book of conspiracy theories and was happily pulling faces at the ideas that they suggested.

Chloe had "What not to wear" a bible for the middle aged women of Suburban Britain in which two female style gurus explained how to find clothes that suited you.

Ken was lying with his legs over the back of the sofa and his head dangling beside the coffee table reading his well thumbed copy of Kevin Keegan's book of soccer skills, looking for all the world that it might well combust from the glare he was giving it. He was even muttering darkly to himself.

Michel had found a teen idol in the form of Artemis Fowl and had, at the book shop that afternoon, bought the entire series in case he finished them this evening. Michel liked reading almost as much as Aya did.

Yuki had curled up on the beanbag he had brought from his room and was playing with his glasses as he read a book imaginatively titled "Slambash Wangs of a compo gormer" that Aya wasn't sure wasn't in a foreign language but was apparently very popular at school and Yuki had been meaning to read it for some time and this had given him the excuse. Having read the back Ken had declared it sounded interesting and wouldn't mind reading it when Yuki was done. This didn't mean that he would, but the interest was there nonetheless.

Gazing around his family, and Aya did consider them his family, Aya felt at peace and then he opened his own well loved copy of In search of lost time, volume 1 and looked at the words. Then he looked at them again, he took a mouthful of his tea and tried again. He closed the book with a sigh, he just wasn't in the mood for reading.


	2. You had to be there

Title: You had to be there

Author: Seraphim Grace  
Archive: if you want it ask, I just like to know where they are. Always appreciated and replied to.

Series: Weiss Kreuz side B  
Rating: G/U

Pairings: none  
Warnings: I have a sick sense of humour, Chloe POV, drabble.

It was the sound of Aya chuckling in the kitchen that finally roused Chloe from his magazine. The article about how a pop starlet had been seduced by an older rock star was just getting interesting as well. Aya didn't chuckle, and he sure as hell didn't laugh.

He was with Ken and Michel and the three of them were howling with laughter. Ken kept thumping the table he was sat at and now and again Chloe could hear Michel's faint giggle.

They were talking, that much was clear because he could hear the dark rumble of Aya's voice and then Ken would laugh, and Ken would say something and Aya would chuckle.

Chloe looked across the parlour to where Yuki was sat with his PSP handheld console. Yuki looked back and shrugged to suggest that he didn't have the faintest idea what was so funny either. Free was sat in the other armchair leaning over the coffee table laying out spreads, to Chloe they looked like practises more than anything else.

"Free," he suggested as there was another peal of Ken's particularly loud braying laugh, "wouldn't a cup of tea be wonderful about now?"

"Your curiosity, Chloe, is hardly reason for me to go in there." Free answered blithely.

There was another tense couple of minutes before Aya chuckled again.

Free rolled his eyes, "you are lucky that I am now in the mood for tea." He told Chloe. Chloe smirked knowing full well that Free was easily as curious as he was.

"I'll have a cola." Yuki piped up from behind his console.

After a few minutes, in which the laughter didn't abate, Free came back in carrying a tray with two cups of tea and a tall glass of cola. He must have been flummoxed by the display in the kitchen, Chloe thought, if he made himself a cup of black china tea instead of the herbal concoction that smelt like mould and tasted like mustard that he normally favoured.

"So," Chloe pressed as he handed him the tea. "What's so funny that Aya is laughing?"

Free looked blank for a moment, "apparently, I had to be there."


	3. Should I stay or should I go?

_Title: should I stay_

_Author: Seraphim Grace_

_Series: Weiss Kreuz_

_Pairing: None, but only Chloe and Ken feature, Ken pov_

_Series: Side B drabbles_

_Rating: U/G_

Ken was in the kitchen of Side B's London home, an apron over his adidas kit and a large crocodile oven mitt covering one hand. He was swinging his hips back and forth loudly singing with the radio as he folded apple sauce into the meringue trying out a recipe that one of the customers had recommended.

Ken adored cooking, he wondered why he had never discovered it before. He had completely taken over the group's kitchen and was fanatical about leaving things where they were kept, enough that he had made a little alcove for hot drinks because other people might want one. He had once made Michel cry because he had made toast and left crumbs on the work surface.

The kitchen was his sanctum, Chloe might like the green house and his roses. Free might like the third storey corridor, for reasons no one else could see but he was often found in the window seat in the lotus position. Yuki had his own position in front of his play station and Michel liked the couch in the dining room. Aya seemed to flit between the gym, which had been set up to be his own personal dojo, and the greenhouse, which he preferred when Chloe wasn't in it.

But the kitchen was Ken's and the rest of the house knew and respected it.

They had their own part of the kitchen and it suited them fine, and if it didn't they weren't about to complain because Ken had once punched Chloe for making a cake, and an unholy mess which he hadn't cleaned up, in his kitchen.

Cooking kept Ken calm, he made cookies that they ate through their shift and delicious stews, soups and salads. Mostly they kept out of his kitchen because he cooked much better than they did, and his temper was best beaten out on a meringue than one of them.

So Ken didn't think anything of dancing around the kitchen singing along with the radio.

"This indecision's bugging me

If you don't want me, set me free

Exactly who'm I'm supposed to be

Don't you know which clothes even fit me?

Come on and let me know

Should I cool it or should I..."

Chloe stood in the doorway, holding a tea cup covered in roses and another more sedate black one, he was making tea for himself and Aya and had obviously seen the entire show.

He asked politely finishing the last line of the song. "Blow?"


	4. Regional Dialect

Side B Drabble

Aya was making up bouquets in the flower shop after hours, making up the complicated ones that had been pre ordered for the morning delivery. It wasn't that he didn't have time in the morning it was just that the shop was quiet so he could sit and drink his tea and listen to the radio. Ken, when he answered the phone, made great notes about what people thought they wanted and what they really wanted - when they got chrysanthemums confused with carnations and things like that.  
It was a happy, quiet time and one of Aya's favourite times of the day.  
Sometimes Chloe would waft in like one of his aftershaves with smiles, off colour banter and cups of fresh tea.  
Sometimes Michel would wander in dragging his bean bag behind him with a book in the other hand.  
Yuki sometimes watched him from the doorway, as if making sure that he was still there.  
And Free would, like Chloe, bring him tea, but take the mess he didn't need, like ribbons and coloured paper, and return it to it's place under the counter.  
Although Aya would argue that it was his alone time it was the time of the day when it felt most like he was part of a family.

He squinted at the paper, Ken's English was never really brilliant but he coped and so he would sketch down the flower's name in kanji so he was amazed by the question  
"do we deliver to Sarflandan?"  
Ken had underlined the address several times and there was a phone number next to it so that they could phone and alert the customer whether or not they did deliver to Sarflandan.  
He looked at it, working out how to pronounce it in his own head just in case Ken had written it down wrong.  
Then he got up, took a sip of his cold tea and fetched the A-Z from the shelf.  
There was no sign of Sarflandan within the city limits.

He chewed on a pen end for a few minutes as he looked at the clock, it was barely half six, it wasn't too late to phone and to check on the address.  
He quickly dialled the number and waited, tapping the chewed pen against his lips.  
"No," the man said in a thick cockney accent, "not Sarflandan, Sarf Landan." He was explicit in the space, "you know, Sarf Landan mate, Sarf Landan," he got the terrible impression the man was laughing at him. He still couldn't find it in the A-Z though. So he asked for the post code.  
The man was laughing at him, "you know, Sarf Landan, Vauxhall, mate, Sarf Landan."  
Vauxhall - he knew he'd seen Vauxhall and realised with a crushing epiphany that it wasn't Sarf Landan, or Sarflandan, though he couldn't really blame Ken.  
"Oh yes," he said, "we deliver south of the river." He said clearly, "I think we just have a bit of a problem with your accent." Sarflandan indeed, and he'd make sure Ken never forgot it.


	5. team bonding pt1

**Lost on a trip**

**Side B**

Aya stopped the car with a squeal on the hard shoulder and turned to look over his shoulder at the passengers in the back. "look, Hidaka, if you think you can find this place any better than I can, let me know, you can drive."

Ken looked across the open back seat of the seven-seater and shrugged, "I just said that I thought I saw our turning back there." Sprawled across ken's knee was a corgi, who was old and vastly fat who was part of KR'S plan to help "team bonding" on this trip.

Free opened one eye, from where he was pretending to sleep and said, "I forsee trouble on this trip." With free it was hard to tell if he was being sarcastic.

"The sage has spoken," Chloe snarked, "he couldn't forsee the way, now could he, we're on an island, how hard can it be to find the sea?"

Aya glared at him, but it seemed to roll off his back.

"Yes," Yuki enthused and everyone turned to look at him, but he just held up his PSP as an answer, "I levelled up," he said and went back to his game.

"Oh sweet god, Arthur," Michel said and started winding down the window, his hand over his nose and mouth. Arthur, KR's beloved, and rather antiquarian, dog just let his tongue loll out of his mouth in joy as the rest of them shoved their heads out of the window.

Ken, stuck in the middle as he was, with the dog sprawled across him said, "team bonding experience, my ass."

"And this," Chloe said, trying not to heave at the smell, "is why I prefer cats."


	6. lost on a trip pt 2

The lingering smell of canine flatulence didn't want to leave the upholstery, even with all the windows open and the air conditioning on full.

Apart from the beeps and whirrs of Yuki's PSP and Arthur's snoring they were silent, Aya had gone through every station and CD in the car to discover three greatest hits of Queen and a station that picked up nothing other than Robbie Williams, so with a grunt he had turned it off.

"Ayan," Ken singsonged, "You know we can't find this place."

"Looe" Aya corrected him.

"There's no need to be rude." Ken told him smartly, "I was just thinking we could stop at that service station, stretch our legs, air out the car that kind of thing."

"A good idea, I'm busting for a piss." Chloe said bluntly.

Aya didn't say anything but went to drive past the entrance.

"Aya," Michel said suddenly. "I don't feel very well."

You didn't have to be Free to see Aya pulling into the service station.

KR had booked the team, and Arthur, into a holiday camp called Weybridge Farm just outside the town of Looe. Chloe had the impression of chalets, yellow blazers and knobbly knee competitions. Aya drove the car up to a large farmhouse on a sprawl of beautiful Cornish country side and got out to collect their keys. Chloe took the opportunity to turn on the Greatest hits of Queen, volume 2 and sing along with Princes of the Universe. Free, Michel and Yuki all gave him strange looks, but Ken looked kind of envious he didn't know the words.

Aya got back in the car, rolled his eyes in much the same manner as Arthur was wont to, and with a deep sigh started the car to take them to their home for the next week.

"No," Chloe said firmly. "I'm not doing it."

Aya crossed his arms, "do you want me to get my sword?" He threatened.

"You left it at home." Free told him, "now get in."

Rather than one of the beautiful cottages all over Cornwall, or the hotels, or rental homes, or even a chalet, KR had gone one better and gotten them a large caravan. A metal box thirty six feet by twelve feet.

"you've got to be shitting me." Yuki said.

"Aya, I don't feel very well."

Arthur managed to express what they were all feeling better than most, he cocked his leg on the steps and relieved himself.

"I always said the English were obtuse." Chloe snarked, throwing himself down on the foam cushion on the wooden bench in the caravan, "only they would go on holiday in a metal box." He looked at the rest of them as Free put the kettle on for tea, "I call shotgun, I'm sharing with Aya."

The caravan had been seperated into several rooms, one double bedroom, one room with two bunks, the cramped shower room, which meant sitting on the chemical toilet with your feet in the shower cubicle, and the main room which had a kitchen, a dining room table, that could be lowered into a double bed, and the parlour, which was three wooden benches around the outside with windows and foam cushions that were surprisingly comfortable.

"I'll share the bunks with Yuki." Michel pipped in.

No one wanted to sleep with Ken. He snored.


End file.
